The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 1

"Ready!" Clargue called. Lamartiere hit the second tank exactly where he'd nailed the first. A 2cm bolt couldn't penetrate the government tanks' frontal armor, but accurately used it put paid to their armament. This time, the hatches flew open and the crew bailed out as soon as the bolt hit.

The government command vehicles carried hoop antennas that set them apart from the ordinary APCs. A guerrilla hit one with a shoulder-launched buzzbomb. The shaped-charge warhead sent a line of white fire through the interior and triggered a secondary explosion that blew the turret off.

In his triumph the rebel forgot the obvious. He reloaded and rose again from the same location. At least a dozen automatic cannon chewed him to a fiery memory.

Lamartiere laid his pipper on the third target. He didn't have time to shoot: the crew was already abandoning their untouched vehicle.

The APCs of the first wave were mostly bogged in the Lystra, though one had managed to wallow back to dry land with riddled skirts. An air-cushion vehicle could move with a leaking plenum chamber, but the fans shed their blades if they tried to push water.

Three of the fording tanks were only ripples on the surface of the river. The fourth had started to climb the south bank. Its bow and turret were clear, but the engine compartment was still under water when rebels had shot the breathing tube away. The bodies of the three crewmen lay halfway out of their hatches.

Lamartiere settled his pipper on the last of the overwatching tanks. The government driver backed and turned sharply, trying to retreat the way he had come. Lamartiere hit the vehicle in the middle of the flank, blowing the thin armor into the capacitor compartment. This time the short circuit was progressive rather than instantaneous as with the first victim, but the tank's ultimate destruction was no less complete.

The surviving APCs roared up the north slope of the valley, going back the way they'd come. Some of them had reversed their turrets and were spraying cannon shells southward, but they no longer made a pretense of aiming. Several vehicles stood empty, though without magnification Lamartiere couldn't see any signs of damage.

There were a dozen brush fires on the south side of the river, and almost that many burning vehicles on the north. It had been a massacre.

Guerrillas sniped at soldiers who were still moving, but some of Befayt's people were already splashing into the water to gather loot from the nearest tank. There was a cable bridge slung underwater a kilometer upstream. Organized parties of guerrillas would cross to sweep the northern bank in a few hours.

The jeep Lamartiere had forgotten suddenly accelerated out of cover, heading uphill. Lamartiere slapped his pipper on it for magnification rather than in a real attempt to shoot.

The vehicle jinked left and vanished before he could have shot. He was almost sure from the brief glimpse that the two figures aboard were wearing Slammers' uniforms.

Lamartiere heard the tribarrel whine under the AI's guidance. It began firing short bursts: the artillery in Ariege was shelling again. The gunners hadn't had enough warning to support the crossing with the concentrations they must have prepared in case of rebel resistance.

"They could have crushed us, Doctor," Lamartiere said in wonder. "They could have gone right through except they panicked. We won because we frightened them, not because we beat them."

"In my proper profession," Clargue said, "a cure is a cure. I don't see a distinction between the psychological effect of a placebo and the biological effect of a real drug—so long as the beneficial effect occurs."

He paused before adding, "I find it difficult to view this destruction as beneficial, but I suppose it's better than the same thing happening to Pamiers."

The last of the surviving APCs had crossed the ridge to safety, leaving behind a pall of dust and the wreckage of their fellows. The tribarrel continued to fire. The gunners no longer had the site under observation, but they were making noise for much the same reason as savages beat drums when the sun vanishes in eclipse.

"I'm going back to Pamiers," Lamartiere said. He was extraordinarily tired. "There's some damage to the skirts—" rips from fragments of the shells that hit the turret in the first salvo "—that needs to be repaired. Then we have to get out of here."

Franciscus jumped onto the bow slope. Lamartiere hadn't seen him approaching; there'd been more on his mind than his immediate surroundings.

"We won!" the colonel shouted. "By God, the Council'll know who to give charge of the war to now! We won't stop in Brione, we'll take Carcassone!"

The cupola hatch was open because Dr. Clargue had been throwing the flash charges out of it. Franciscus climbed up and said, "I'll ride inside on the way back."

Lamartiere heard the hatch thump closed. Franciscus shouted in anger.

Lamartiere drove Hoodoo up and onto the road. Neither he nor the doctor spoke on the way back to Pamiers.